This chapter investigates the circumstances in which a marriage involving a non- EEA migrant spouse is designated a sham marriage so that residence rights are refused. It analyses the problems of understanding and defining a sham marriage and argues that controls over sham marriages often regulate a much wider range of marriages than those entered for the sole purpose of obtaining residence rights.

Immigration policies and policies regarding the integration of ethnic minorities into Dutch society have been on the Dutch political agenda for the past decades. Recently, however, these debates received a new impulse from the publication of a newspaper article by a prominent member of the Dutch Labor party, Paul Scheffer. In this chapter I wish to place recent developments in Dutch family reunification policies against the background of these current debates on immigration, integration, and traditional Dutch culture - and in particular, Dutch family norms.

While families all over the world enlist the help of family, friends, or paid day care for their children, the need to do so is especially strong for individual women (single or divorced) who work outside the home to earn a living. Women who migrate for work in another country, in search of better pay, may need to have children stay in the homes of others in the country of origin. That "good mothering" may take many forms was not initially recognized under Dutch immigration law. The approach in the Netherlands eventually brbought it into conflict with European human rights law and with the merging immigration law of the European Union (EU).

While families all over the world enlist the help of family, friends, or paid day care for their children, the need to do so is especially strong for individual women (single or divorced) who work outside the home to earn a living. Women who migrate for work in another country, in search of better pay, may need to have children stay in the homes of others in the country of origin. That "good mothering" may take many forms was not initially recognized under Dutch immigration law. The approach in the Netherlands eventually brbought it into conflict with European human rights law and with the merging immigration law of the European Union (EU).

The European Court on Human Rights (European Court) has recently brought out an important decision regarding the admission of children in the case of Sen v. the Netherlands. Depending on how one interprets this decision, it could mean a significant shift from earlier decisions that the European Court has taken on this issue.